As, I’ve finally gotten a chance to breathe and break from studying…and process some things even more…I thought I’d blog it out, which means that this will probably be all over the place but I’m fine with that. I am a student…a perpetual one but I am student none the less and the lessons that I’ve been learning in the life classroom have had me both in my heart and head…quite a bit…It’s nothing deep or super profound because there is nothing new under the sun but when you find your truth or self in those cliched life sayings it’s…interesting…Forgiveness sprinkled in with letting go and fear have been the lessons that I can’t escape no matter where I go…forgiveness and letting go seem to be the sledge-hammer that break away fear and move you past the pain. However, getting to that place of forgiveness and letting go takes time…it is truly a work…because it requires releasing and reliving the anger…the questions…..the regret…the should’ve/could’ve/would’ve’s… and all the pain…
Letting go is like pulling back an onion because there are so many layers and triggers that go along with it…A lot of us let go of things but we don’t really deal with the fall out of letting things go, because it triggers all of the things previously mentioned… there are side effects to letting go….In addition to that our lives continue to go on and there are people who depend on us and things that we must deal with so there is no time to sit on the sidelines and truly deal with all the things that letting go and walking in true forgiveness require… Or so we think but not dealing with those things has a tendency to seep into other areas of our life, but we don’t recognize it because it’s masked as other things. As, I’ve been getting the tools necessary to walk the walk and process the pain… My sisters and I having been studying different things in regards to energy…spirituality patterns…etc…and one of the things we’ve been talking about is how our emotional pain manifest physically in our bodies…
Below, I will share some articles that talk about the correlation between our emotional and physical pain (I’m also going to recommend the book Black Pain by Terrie Williams). There is an author by the name of Louise L. Hay that writes about this subject from a spiritual perspective and I’ll share somethings from her book and other articles. For example, Black women typically tend to suffer from fibroids and cyst in very large numbers…so as I was searching for the correlating connection that Ms. Hays draws with this particular type of pain to the spiritual …. She asserts that this type of pain emerges from dealing with nursing the hurt from a partner or dealing with a blow to the feminine ego… When I think about how many of us have been victims of abuse, rape, molestation, physical violence, heartbreak, and rejection then it is easy to see how the feminine ego can be bruised or damaged. When any of those things happen to Black women usually, we don’t take the time to deal with it via counseling…inner healing classes…or reporting it to the authorities. We suffer in silence and those suppressed emotions show up in the form of fibroids.. high blood pressure..obesity…heart disease and anything else you can think of it…It is easy to see how not dealing with these things can trigger other conditions that you think or strictly based on your diet…but those things are stressors which impact your body as well. In her book Mrs. Hay states that it requires one to release the pattern in them that attracted the experience…For pain the origins are guilt because guilt always seeks punishment…and her response to that is to lovingly release the past because they are free and you are free and all is well in your heart. Her book covers so many different things and if its something that you think you can dig then check her out…
Looking at the connection between emotional pain and its physical manifestation is a very interesting topic and it makes sense to me on some levels. And I can relate to it…because I got some news that while I had a feeling it was coming so I wasn’t totally surprised…. I expected a different outcome with certain parts of the information. So when my..head…heart…and emotions started to really connect with it on all levels I couldn’t really process it….and I felt the pain physically in my body…and even today there is still some residual fall out… I couldn’t eat… or even drink water at one point because it hurt…It has caused me to drop weight like I was trying to make the cut for a boxing match….so I have no other choice but to deal with it because I’m over going to the doctor and I don’t want to continue to be in bondage or a slave to that experience and the pain it has caused me. I am finding and being my own sunshine and I’m thankful for the man and people I have in my life who are helping me.
When I take this theory into consideration and once again examine how disproportionately Black people are effected by so many diseases according to the stats…If you buy that hype.. then I can see it…When you consider that Black people traditionally don’t seek out mental health counseling…may not have access to proper health care…money and time to cook a healthy diet…or they only taking their issues to the father so they don’t take any classes that deal with inner healing because their churches don’t offer it.. or we simply don’t tell our business… We don’t have time to sit and process how we feel about things because life is still going on it is an interesting thing. It’s like a perfect storm for disease to reign in our lives…I know that now I’m doing my part like never before to keep and maintain my sunshine…. because I needed out of the physical…spiritual…and mental prison that we are all capable of putting ourselves in when we’ve been hurt beyond our understanding and what we think our hearts can take….Especially when I think about the pain that life has given me over the course of the last 4 years but especially these last few months. This work in progress is getting much better and I’m almost there…Once I get this thing licked…Watch Out!!!
Letting go and this forgiveness thing is not easy because you can fall into the mental traps that love keeping you bound…Therefore keeping your energy positive and your attitude in check is apart of the process…hitting the pain with forgiveness and letting go are the sledge-hammer that breaks the fear and pain away from you…It must be done because you need to get FREE….Sometimes it’s a daily thing and you have to speak it maybe not to the person but just saying that you forgive_____and you choose not to be hurt or angry…is a must until you aren’t affected by it…We have to learn to not walk in our past experience but to let it go…because on the other-side of it is relief and freedom…chant it until it becomes your reality…write it until it becomes your truth…step out on faith…and believe that your higher power can help with the pain. Remember that it is deeper than not just speaking to someone or ignoring the situation totally…if it you don’t want to carry that baggage or pain around you’ve got to make an effort to let it go… and trust that the rest will fall into place….While it can be a struggle releasing it is the only way to let go because if not…it might be done for you in a way or manner that you weren’t expecting…so….You can either Pick at the band-aid or rip it off..It may not happen when you want it to but it will happen…so brace yourself and have a support system because you will need it. 
“You gotta stand up for yourself, forgive people and decide to let the pain go”…
“Most people who hurt you leave you there to fix things on your own”…
“People get hurt and wait around for the person who hurt them to heal their emotions”…
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you”. Lewis B. Smedes
“Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other.” Lewis B. Smedes
“None of us wants to admit that we hate someone…When we deny our hate we detour around the crisis of forgiveness. We suppress our spite, make adjustments, and make-believe we are too good to be hateful. But the truth is that we do not dare to risk admitting the hate we feel because we do not dare to risk forgiving the person we hate.” Lewis B. Smedes
“Forgiving does not usually happen at once. It is a process, sometimes a long one, especially when it comes to wounds gouged deep. And we must expect some lapses…some people seem to manage to finish off forgiving in one swoop of the heart. But when they do, you can bet they are forgiving flesh wounds. Deeper cuts take more time and can use a second coat.” Lewis B. Smedes
“I am certain that people never forgive because they believe they have an obligation to do it or because someone told them to do it. Forgiveness has to come from inside as a desire of the heart. Wanting to is the steam that pushes the forgiving engine.” Lewis B. Smedes
“Spoken forgiving, no matter how heartfelt, works best when we do not demand the response we want. I mean that when we tell people we forgive them, we must leave them free to respond to our good news however they are inclined. If the response is not what we hoped for, we can go home and enjoy our own healing in private.” Lewis B. Smedes
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/29/news/la-heb-love-hurts-20110329
http://www.ygoy.com/index.php/the-relationship-between-emotional-and-physical-pain/
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/28/burn.heartbreak.same.to.brain/index.html?hpt=Sbin
